Garden lights are some of the most beautiful decorative products that can be used for illuminating and brightening up your garden. These are extremely popular and are available in various shapes, sizes, colors and patterns. You can buy them either online or from the real stores. Broadly, there are three types of lights that are available in the market. This includes portable fuel-powered lighting, traditional electrical lights, and solar lighting.

The fuel-powered lights have small cylinders to contain oil or gas. They need refilling everyday and emit a flickering flame. The solar products are eco friendly and are easily installed. They can be obtained in various designs. The electric ones are difficult to install because they require wiring. However, once set up, they are easy to use. Some more varieties like low voltage, led, lantern, flood and spotlights form sub categories under the aforementioned broad sections.

You can use different illumination techniques for your garden. You can either set them on the decks or choose to go with a landscape effect. You can use lampposts, which will lend a touch of the ancient charm. Use designer fixtures and lanterns for hanging them to provide illumination for a large area. Fixtures are available in different shapes and sizes. If you are looking to illuminate the garden path, rope bulbs are fabulous. They add to the beauty of your backyard and also make the area look large. The recessed, Spike Mountain, tree, bollard and step, patio, underwater, column, pedestal, pond and novelty arrangements have also become popular.

Some of the best brands in the business include Hunza, PLM LED Lights, Konstsmide, Moonrays, Malibu and Aurora Glow. The garden lights manufactured by these companies are world class. Apart from their primary product, they also manufacture accessories as well as different products for illumination effects. You will get a huge variety of items along with plans on different kinds of arrangements, ranging from classic to basic, from PIR to columns and plant pots.

try adding a touch of light.

There are many style and options for adding light to your garden. A few popular choices include; Solar lights, Tropical lights, floodlights, accent lights, candles, and even Tiki torches. There are as well several types of popular styles which include; vertical lighting, moon effect, spot lighting, broad beam, cross technique, and silhouetting.

Some ideas for popular areas for light placement where you can get started adding lights to your garden or home include; pathways, hanging lights around the outside, string lights in trees or bushes, or illuminate your deck or patio.

Some of the benefits that garden lighting adds to the house are; beautiful illuminated enclosures and security.

Some popular stores that carry garden lighting and kits and how to books include; Wal-mart, eBay, Sears, Home depot, Menards, Amazon, and at your own local hardware store. Some of the more popular department store even put on do-it-yourself workshops. Check local hardware stores for availability.

Garden lights come in easy inexpensive prepackaged kits that include everything that the homeowner needs to get started. Here is one kit featured at Wal-Mart: Westinghouse Bostonian Solar Lights Set, 8-piece $30.00 USD. Another kit featured on Home Depot’s official site is more on the expensive side; Malibu Black Matte Finish Metal Tier Light Kit $139.00 USD. This particular item includes six path lights, two accent lights, and power supply. There is also the option to buy singular items and put together you own lighting design.

As you a can see, there are many beautiful options to improve your garden or yard with lighting. It is truly an inexpensive way to improve and beautify an area.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the most common techniques and types of outdoor lighting we can use to enhance the beauty of our garden.

This includes solar lighting, up lights, down lights, spot lights, accent lighting, flood lights, and spread lighting. Let’s go through them one by one!

Solar lighting is easy to install as well as very economical. There are an array of styles which will meet your needs – as in, pretty  much any other style of lighting can be found in a solar counterpart.  There may be the upfront cost for the lights but no monthly fees for electrical usage which is always nice. Combine these nuggets of wisdom and you’ll understand why solar lighting has become very popular in the last few years – especially since the price has gone done over the years and solar technology becomes cheaper and well – better!

Lighting can enhance the landscape in many creative ways. One way is to use up lighting. Up lights shine upwards onto statues, trees, walkways, or other garden decorations. Another lighting technique is down lighting. Down lights installed above a structure which shine downwards onto the object you want lit up. It gives the effects of a full moon on a dark evening.

The garden spot lights are designed to highlight a specific tree, fountain, or statue. On dark nights, this makes the object quite visible. Accent lights are placed near the ground to provide subtle illumination. This lighting can be spread through your landscape which enhances the beauty of the space. Flood lighting creates silhouettes in your garden adding visual interest that is not seen in daytime hours.

The technique of spread lighting illuminates larger areas such as shrubs, flower beds, borders or landscapes. This lighting allows individuals to enjoy their gardens in the evening hours.

As you can see, this variety of different lighting types and techniques allows for a vast amount of creativity for landscape enhancement. It can also be challenging when selecting and placing décor lighting for the best possible effects. Define your goals for a garden lighting scheme. Well spaced, bright lighting is needed if you are opting to attain safety and security. If you are looking for ambiance, then a few, specially placed lights is all that will be needed.

Wilshire is a middle-market to upper-end provider of classic exterior lights. They are a name known for quality, with an original focus on sales to the hospitality industry. Now many of their designs are available to the home market, especially their outdoor line of products. From wall sconces to post lights, they offer classic designs to base a top-notch garden light design.

Kichler is another quality provider of outdoor lighting. Produced in Cleveland, Ohio since 1938, Kichler lights can meet every garden landscape light need. Their offerings include something for every need and budget. Kichler is an established company that is not afraid of innovation. They were one of the first mainstream lighting companies to adopt LED lights into their exterior lines. Many of their products are low-voltage and energy star rated. Their outdoor line of products includes wall sconces, pendant lights, pier mounts, deck mounts, spot lights, and recessed well lights.

Nuvo is a slightly less costly line that has an amazing variety of choices available. With twenty two collections and twenty five finishes. From matte black to brushed silver, there is a color and finish for every garden design. The Nuvo garden lights cost 30% less on average than Wilshire and Kichler. Overall reviews of this brand are very positive considering how cost effective much of the line truly manages to be. Their lines include low voltage and security lights as well as the more decorative flush, hanging and wall lights. Their pathway lights are well designed and clean in line.

Unique Arts offers a comprehensive line of high-quality solar garden lights. Their designs vary from an executive post lamp to staked copper lanterns. Many of the solar lights are as decorative as they are functional. From lit house numbers to solar powered crystalline flowers, these energy efficient lights never increase your power bill but provide 8 to 10 hours of lighting to your landscape.

With so many options on the table, where do you start? Well, that’s a good question. Let’s hold on to it for a minute while we take a look at some of the more popular types of garden and outdoor lights for  home use.

Ground Stakes. These are lights that mount into the ground. Most commonly used in and around specific plants you want to light up as well as being used to light up pathways with lights that are not easily movable. These are also commonly solar powered.

Hanging Lights. Hanging lights – and this usually means solar hanging lights – are awesome for lighting up walkways and pathways. They also add a very classy look to youre garden!

Stair Lights. For the back deck or front porch at night, stairs can be a risky venture. That’s what stair lights were invented for – to light those stairs up so you don’t have to worry about where you’re stepping! Again, solar powered stair lights are popular for this purpose as you don’t have to mess with any wiring!

Spot Lights and Flood Lights. These types of lights are used to cast a wide light over a whole area. Flood lights are more wide whereas spot lights offer a more narrow pinpoint to focus on. As with most types of outdoor lighting made these days, there are both conventional and solar powered spot and flood lights. Because of the high amount of light caste from these units, many people use standard lights over solar light.

Additionally, beyond all these types of fantastic garden and outdoor lights listed above, there are many other types of outdoor or garden lights that we can qualify under the general or misc. category of lighting. Take a look at any home or garden shop and you will see what we mean. Depending on your garden set up, these misc. types of lights could offer the lighting you are looking for to get your garden just right!

If you just want to get your feet wet – or shall I say, if you just want to get your thumb a little green, and you’re just getting started with gardening and lights and how it all works, take a look at what’s called an Aerogarden. An Aerogarden is a self-contained indoor gardening unit that also comes with it’s own lighting system. Observing how these units function could be a great start in understanding the basics of how to work with plants and lighting systems to promote healthy plants and gardens!

Solar Garden Lights are a lot easier to get set up. Why? Because there’s no cables to deal with, that’s why! All it takes is purchasing them and then placing them in the garden, taking care to make sure the solar panels (either built into the lights or running attached with a small cord) are placed in such a way to capture direct sunlight. That is all it’s going to take to power the lights, and this means it’s very easy for everyone involved.

Standard Garden Lights are harder to set up. You could run a cable on top of the ground, but that would look ridiculous. Instead, you’ll need to properly bury or at least strategically conceal the power cables. This means digging and manuevering. It might also mean some kind of electrical skills as you tweak the light set up for your garden. What this offers in trade is the ability to have a lot more control over where the lights are placed, since the cables can be routed anywhere under the ground, and no light source is not in any way related to being exposed to the sun to capture solar energy.

Another factor between these two options is the price and cost of each type of lighting. Solar garden lights cost more than standard garden lights. However, the big selling point here is that you will spend zero dollars powering them. Year after year will pass and you will have garden lights on, and will not spend a penny on keeping them on. But at the same time, the cost of standard garden lights is considerably less than that of their solar counterparts. The budget may demand a less expensive choice to start with.

One more factor is this question you may want to ask yourself: How important is it to you to use energy efficient, green lighting?

Gardeners work with the earth, and many extend their respect for the plants and trees and the air and the grass by their work in the garden. For them, it only makes sense to use solar powered garden lights, as this plays a small but important role in reducing ones overall footprint. This is something to think about it for anyone who uses garden lighting.

How exactly do solar garden lights work their magic? Without getting into any technical details, it’s simple: they are equipped with small solar panels. When the sun is shining, these solar panels are able to capture a tiny, tiny fraction of the energy emitted. Then, this energy is re-purposed into powering the equipped lights. (FYI, the solar cells themselves are usually made up of either pure silicon, amorphous silicon, or crystalline silicon. For more information on the technical set up of a solar powered light, check out this post from How Stuff Works.)

This means that you only get lights from a solared powered garden light if there’s been enough sun during the day for the solar panels to capture. The specifics vary from model to model, depending on how many solar panels are used and how efficient they are, but it generally works so that if it’s sunny for much of the day, the solar garden lights will keep light until late at night, and even through the night. Some solar powered garden lights won’t last as long though, and may give you a return of about half – for instance, 8 hours of sunlight will give you 4 hours of solar powered garden light. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but this means that the garden will be lit up all the way up to most peoples bedtimes.

Like any garden or home accessory, solar garden lights come in a wide variety of designs. Many are self contained, meaning the solar panel and the light are all together in a compact unit. Others attach to a solar panel that can be placed a few feet away. These types of units are ideal for a set up in which the lights need to be placed in such a way that direct sunlight wouldn’t hit them, but with the attached panel running a few feet away, you’re still able to capture solar energy. Prices vary quite a bit, but expecting to pay around $100 for a solar garden lights set from a standard home improvement store is probably about right for most people getting started with solar garden lights.

But are you really saving money by buying the cheapest lights?

As you know, there is more to it than this…

Consider that many solar powered garden lights come equipped with the technology to be self-sustaining, at least so long as the sun lasts, capturing the energy of the sun freely and using it to remain powered. And being that the sun is already about 4.5 billion years old at this point (give or take a few years), scientists estimate it’s nearly half way through it’s life cycle. So that means you’ve got up to another 4-5 billions year of getting free energy from the sun for your garden lights. Not a bad deal!

Now here’s where the cost saving fun statistics come into play:

If you estimate that each year you save $120 off your electrical bill (a conservative estimate) by powering all your garden lights via solar power, you stand to save an estimated $480 Billion to $600 Billion dollars over the course of the lifetime of the sun. That’s enough for another government bailout package!

ACTUALLY, I’m just seeing if you’re paying attention. If you are, then let’s get into the real specifics of the cost saving scenario that solar lights offer us.

If you estimate that your solar garden lights will last 10 years, and each month they save you $10 off your standard power bill, that’s $120 that stays in your pocket every year because of the one time investment you made into solar powered lights.

Over the 10 year lifespan of these products, that’s $1200 that you otherwise would have spent on powering standard lights and paying the electrical company for the priviledge to do so.

So considering that while shopping for garden lighting, the $100 or $200 set of high quality solar powered garden lights might set you back a bit over the much cheaper “normal” lighting, in the long run – yes, this sounds cliche, and it’s even a double pun, but nevertheless – it pays to go green!

In sum, solar garden lights are cheaper in the long run. It’s that simple!